The first support act, Palisades, came on stage after a short intro and the small crowd were off their feet instantly. The crowd were very responsive to front man Lou as him and the band paraded around the stage. Lou had a really crisp powerful scream and a wide clean vocal range at his disposal to entice the crowd. The drummer, Aaron Rosa, looked to be having the time of his life, as did all the members, and with an electronic interval that got the crowd on their feet and doing whatever Lou told them to, the crowd were truly ready for the next act.
Dream On Dreamer entered to a ambient-sounding intro and when frontman Marcel Gadacz entered the stage the crowd go wild. As the title track of their new album Loveless plays, the crowd clapped along and swayed to the slower song. The band couldn’t keep still as they leapt around the stage and headbanged but unfortunately, Marcel’s screams weren’t overly strong and he didn’t have a huge range. On the other hand, their clean vocalist Callan William Or had a fantastic voice and sounded exactly like he did on the recordings. The band had huge energy and dominated the small stage. They slowed the set down with their song Hear Me Out showing of Callan’s vocal ability and they then picked up the pace after introducing themselves halfway though their set. The band were tight musically but lacked some charisma as they struggled to get the crowd going.
People poured into the open space awaiting headliners Silverstein to take to and annihilate the stage. As the band came on and started to play, the crowd got violent and was crushing the people at the front of the crowd into the side of the stage. Opening with their song Your Sword Vs My Dagger and leading into Massachusetts from the new album This is How The Wind Shifts, the eager crowd sang along at the top of their voices. Shane Told, the frontman, pulled off his incredible screams and his clean vocals were impeccable, with the smooth transaction between the screams and clean vocals impressive. The band put so much energy into the set and were sweating like pigs only a few songs in.
Playing their new release I Will Illuminate, the band showed off how much they’d grown musically with an instrumental masterpiece. Putting in their all for the set, they demonstrated why they’ve been around for over a decade. The crowd were less responsive to the new song but it was played fantastically, although Shane’s screams let him down at portions of the song. The bassist, Bill, had so much energy jumping around the stage and headbanging, and also contributed backing screams, showing off his talent and mastery of his bass by making the complex songs look like child’s play. Playing songs from their album Short Songs, made up of songs lasting under 2 and a half minutes, they played three songs consecutively and the drummer Paul showed off his skill with the complex fast dominating drums.
Unfortunately, members of the audience had no regard or mercy for the people at the front as they crushed them to get closer to the band. Not bothering to sing into his microphone during the song SOS, Shane could still be heard over by the roaring fans, and having trouble holding screams as the set progressed didn’t stop him from giving it his all. Doing a mash up from their album Shipwreck In The Sand, Bill showed off his screaming ability giving Shane a break from all the vocal work. The band left guitarist Paul onstage to stay and sing Arrivals from their new album and the band joined him again for the song Departures and the atmosphere was amazing with the whole crowd singing along and swaying.
After a bit of banter over whether the UK is a part of Europe, the crowd erupted into roars as the opening riff of Silverstein’s huge song My Heroine started. The crowd were audible over Shane singing his heart out, which sounded so impressive. The crowd were off their feet the whole song and singing at the top of their lungs, and it was fantastic to hear. Paul’s fingers were practically a blur during their song Smile In Your Sleep, what with the complexity of the songs instrumental and fast riffs.
One of the few rules of The Underworld is no stage diving, but the crowd didn’t care and jumped on stage and stage dived and crowdsurfed to the back of the room and that marked the end of the set. But the crowd were persistent and cheered the band back on for the encore. They opened the encore with To Live And To Lose and the crowd sang for Shane at the start but as the song progressed the crowd were dominated and just watched the band devour and destroy the stage with their stage presence and energy before they finisedh the set with their debut single Smashed Into Pieces. The band brought the thunder and ended the set on such a high.
After 13 years of being together and touring relentlessly, the band still have so much passion for what they do and they love. The energy the band put in as a whole was phenomenal and they sounded nearly identical to their albums. However the crowd were hyperactive, rude, insensitive to the people at the front and unnecessarily pushy and violent. But as a whole, the night was incredible with all the acts putting on a fantastic show and getting the crowd going.
9/10
Photography by Deanna Wordley.
